If there were one thing you could educate people about, what would it be?

That DID does exist and that people who suffer from mental illness (including people with DID) do not automatically suffer from learning disabilities and are not necessarily a danger to society. That some of us are highly intelligent and do actually know what we are talking about when discussing our own conditions. — MoonFleaI would like to teach people that my behaviour is normal because of what I went through — I am not ‘mental’. I would educate folks on the impact dissociating has on my life. — PebblesWe are in here, and all of it is me. So please accept us. — Megan

I would like people to know that we have used an amazing, God-given, survival mechanism. That we escaped psychologically when we could not escape physically. We didn’t choose to be abused or separated from attachment caregivers (whatever it is that has caused the dissociation), and we don’t choose for the past to intrude into our life today. We have survived and we are amazing. — Kitty

An awareness of how it hides itself —especially the ability to function normally, like at medical appointments or work, despite totally falling apart night after night. And the truth about much-publicised ‘false’ memory and those who like to pretend that ritual abuse and sexual interest in babies doesn’t exist. —notallthere

Dissociation doesn’t make you a freak. — closetotheedge

A friend told me that she doesn’t want to be around me because her friend who works in probation stated that all people with DID are criminals and often repeat the abuse cycle. She wouldn’t allow me to be around her children. Of course the friend would have encountered only criminals with DID since she works in probation, but nobody got my logic. I am yet to be a criminal or to abuse anybody. I wish people would realise that not all people with DID are the same. — wiesel

I would teach people that dissociation is a coping mechanism used by people who were hurt as children, and that we do not cause it to happen, but our mind/brain causes it to happen so that our core self can survive. I would teach people that we are not evil or possessed, but that our various parts (mainly our younger parts) need to go through healing so that they can eventually feel safe enough to join our core self at the age we are now, and we can live in unity as a whole, mature person. — IvyMay

That abusers look and act like normal people. And that their victims are normal people, with normal reactions to what has happened to them. — Wisp

Make the NHS more aware of DID and stop labelling difficult clients with something else. Educate everyone about DID and why it happens, and that we deserve to be treated like anyone else. We didn’t ask for this —it was inflicted on us to get through some very difficult times. We need more access to psychiatrists who understand DID and so much more specialised care. When your world is falling apart and you are hanging on by a thread, you need someone who understands. — VickyL

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